2011-06-27

Annual rites

Few things are quite as desolate as Stockholm on Midsummer’s Eve. Honeybuns and I, having nothing else on the programme, decided to go out for dinner, but found that our chosen restaurant, as well as plans B and C, was closed. We strolled along Hornsgatan, and while a few fast food places were open, we continued in the hope of something better. Eken was open, but having sat in the conversation-killingly loud mood music for ten minutes without the staff paying the slightest attention to us, we decided that our patronage would be better off somewhere else.

When we reached the Old Town, we realised that the only ones still in the city were the tourists, and of course the tourist traps along Västerlånggatan would be open in order to cater to their needs. Honeybuns suggested we go for Slingerbulten, which turned out to be a good idea. I was at first surprised to be greeted in English, but of course, given the tourist-only population, this made sense. The staff was very friendly, if somewhat confused at times, and the food was quite OK, if nothing remarkable. After dessert we continued towards the Central Station. At Tegelbacken we helped out a couple of Germans who had difficulty orienting their map in the right direction and sent them on towards the Old Town.

Midsummer’s Day started out with rain and thunder, but the skies cleared somewhat in the afternoon and we decided to go visit Gröna Lund. We were rather shocked to find that bus 47 has been disappeared, so we took the tram out instead. It was not crowded. The weather was still unstable and we had both rain and sun at the same time.

We had dinner at Kaskad, which was so-so. The food was decent, but way too expensive. While they pride themselves on being allergy-aware, the staff claimed for the longest while that their Spaghetti Bolognese was gluten-free until I had them double-check, on which they had to admit that wasn’t exactly the case.

After food we went for the rides. Most Stockholmers still being away, all queues were pleasantly short. Honeybuns is much more fond of g-forces than I am, so on all the in-ride photographs that are de rigeur for roller-coasters these days one could see a happily beaming Honeybuns and a clenched-jaw me. Despite much cajoling I absolutely, positively, refused to ride the Insane.

In French cotton candy is known as barbe à papa and there was indeed pink strawberry-flavoured cotton candy as well.

We also did some small amount of betting on the chocolate wheels, but no jumbo packages of candy for us this time. Around this time I suddenly realised that the Ferris wheel also has been disappeared. First they rebuilt the view tower into Free Fall and now they’ve taken the Ferris wheel away. Are there to be no calm and dignified rides at all left? At least the Circus carousel is still around.

Finally we took the ferry to in to the city and arrived home around midnight.